Yes.
In a way we have been getting a free ride. We buy the world's goods with pieces of paper, and then they reinvest a lot of the money in the USA so the money comes right back. That's why the Sauds won't abandon the dollar, their holdings are in dollars. That's why the Chinese need to prop us up too, they have hundreds of billions in US reserves that would be worth zilch if the currency collapsed. That's why the Fed can inflate away our credit problems by debasing the currency and we only suffer mild inflation. As the world's buyer of last resort and in posession of the main reserve currency, other foreign banks have to buy up all the excess to in order to maintain a relative weakness against the dollar and bolster their competitive advantage in manufacturing(read China). Wait until Japan abandons it's zero rate interest policy. Once the yen/dollar carry trade dries up..hehe. They basically borrow yen over there at super low interest rates and lend in dollars which command higher rates. Now that the Fed has cut the difference between the two is less.
Quite a nice racket.
Burn